So, I haven't posted any poems for a long time. I'm feeling the need to start again. And why not start for Mother's Day?
These are two poems from Carol Lynn Pearson's book "Beginnings." (You may be getting the feeling that I like Carol Lynn Pearson. Um, I really do. I love the work of many other poets too, but Carol always seems to sing the same song my heart sings.)
The first poem "Investment" is dedicated to my younger sister who will soon be giving birth to her first child. I'm so thrilled for her I could burst.
The second poem "The Unwritten Poem" is dedicated to my mother, who has given so much to her children. She loves to write and has always told me she'd love to write more. I think she should! Until then, she just keeps on encouraging and loving me and everyone else in her family. She has given me so many poems.
Investment
How enviously
I watched
The rose bush
Bear her bud --
Such an easy,
Lovely birth.
And
At that moment
I wished
The sweet myth
Were true --
That I could
Pluck you,
My child,
From some
Green vine.
But now
As you breathe,
Through flesh
That was mine
(Gently in the
Small circle
Of my arms),
I see
The wisdom
Of investment.
The easy gift
Is easy to forget.
But what is bought
With coin of pain --
Is dearly kept.
The Unwritten Poem
Sometimes --
In a sitting down moment
On a day
Of stove-heating the sad-irons
And layering newspaper between
Quilts to keep us warmer --
I heard my mother say,
"I wish I had time
To write a poem."
And then she would start
The potatoes.
When I was twelve
A thing happened that
Broke my heart --
A school thing I've forgotten now.
For hours I cried my humiliation
Into a handkerchief.
Next day my mother
Brought in in from ironing --
That handkerchief --
And gave it to me special.
"Here," she laid it in my lap.
"You've had it in happy times
And in sad.
There'll be more of both.
Keep it, and it will remind you
The better follows the bad."
She went back to ironing,
And my fingers traced
The little flowers of fading blue.
I can remember other poems
She left me, too.
